The frugal weight watcher

Hello Dear Reader,

No snow here! Not a flake but it is really cold. Dearly Beloved is chief stoker and the fire is roaring. I've made it to the gym every day and can already feel the benefits. For those of you in the know, I can keep my heart rate working at 175 for twenty minutes and get it back to 110 in fifteen seconds! It was a total shock to discover that I'm not only healthy but I have a heart built for exercise as my recovery rate is rapid. I promise that is the last exercise I'll mention as I have no intention of boring people about my arse reducing adventures.

I will share some frugal food with you in an answer to this Dear Reader,

 Linda Metcalf18 January 2013 12:33

Just wondering ...do you have to special shop for your supplies to make "diet" meals or are you just eating regular only in very small amounts? When I did Weight Watchers I found the low point soups were really good to fill up on. Eating healthy is so expensive here as fresh fruits and vegetables are much higher than canned foods.

Hi Linda. I certainly don't. I'm determined to keep to a standard budget as I'm spending money on the gym, I have to keep a grip on the food budget. Here's an example of one of my WW breakfast. 50g of wafer thin ham, four mushrooms and two eggs. It's almost a fry up!

Beat two eggs in a tea cup. Chop the mushrooms and fry in 10g of utterly butterly. When fried add the chopped ham and pour the eggs over them. In WW terms, that's 6 points for breakfast. Breakfast for under £1.

I have Tupperware tubs in my fridge full of soup. I made a batch of it and have it round the clock. You can use any vegetables. I used: two large diced onions, 2 finely diced leeks, 4 finely diced carrots, one chopped butternut squash, one finely chopped cabbage and two tins of chopped tomatoes. I made up a litre of chicken stock from two chicken oxo cubes. I mixed the lot together and let it come to the boil and then simmer. There is one WW point in the whole thing from the two chicken stock cubes. I then take it to work in smaller tubs and heat it up for lunch. I eat it with a yogurt (2 points and 30p from Aldi) and two apples. Lunch for well under £1.

Dinner was just a spagetti bolognese. Nothing special at all. I don't buy extra special, extra lean, just the bog standard mince from the butcher. I have a third and DB has two thirds! It's the ratio we work on. Here's the recipe.

300g of minced beef

Half a head of celery

2 large onions

garlic

4 carrots.

Mixed herbs

Salt and pepper

Tin of chopped tomatoes

Enough pasta for two people. Start cooking this at the same time as the meat sauce.

Blitz the vegetables in the food processor until tiny bits. Add to the mince and cook until the meat is cooked and the carrots are soft. Add the seasoning and tomatoes and continue to cook, until cooked.

I place my empty bowl on the digital scales and measure out my 150g of cooked pasta and put the rest in DB's bowl. I then divide the meat sauce so DB has two thirds and I have a third. I even weighed out the 15g of parmesan. My dinner tonight was 13 points. I am struggling to eat as much as I'm supposed to and make up some of calories with milk in my tea and I'm eating a lot of apples, tinned fruit in juice and piles of vegetables.

I'm not finding this expensive and wouldn't bother if it was. I eat simple plain home cooked food and this really isn't much difference except I'm weighing my portions so I know I'm not over eating. I'm certainly not under eating!

I hope that answer your question Linda. I still use frozen veg and tinned veg and I buy almost all of my veg from Lidl and Aldi and they have really good offers. This week, all butternut squash were 49p each. I bought six and they'll last for ages. I'm still eating homemade bread, I just 'point' the entire loaf, weigh it and then work out the points in each slice by weighing the slice I cut off. Some of you will be cringing at the effort but for a number lover like me, this is nothing more than another game to play!

I'm going to be quilting, having a local charity shop browse, getting out for a long walk in the arctic conditions and getting the house work done. What are you up to this weekend? Any one snowed in? Anyone braving the elements for a big walk or run this weekend? Anyone else shrinking on the WW?

Do let me know,

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx